OVERTON, Texas — Where the First Baptist Church's Family Life Center once stood, a charred skeleton with a scent of burnt wood now stands in downtown Overton.
The structure caught fire on Sunday night, where one resident said the flames went up to 70 feet tall.
"My ex-girlfriend, she lives in the apartments over here," said Brandon Williams, an Overton resident. "She called me and said the kids were scared. I mean, it was a big fire. It was a scary thing. So I came to check it out."
Right before the fire, a family of the church gathered for a lunch and ceremony to celebrate the life of their late Pastor Charles Pascall.
"He’s been here 23 years," said Noey Brown, the pastor's son-in-law. "There's just so many memories in this place that it's hard to see. But, at the same time this is just a building. The church is the people, the church is God's people reaching out to the community around them."
Brown said his wife is still heartbroken from the loss of her dad.
"He was just a friend," Brown said. "Somebody who I loved getting to talk to and spend time with."
Brown said within the past few months, Pascall had a heart attack and his kidneys began to fail. Brown had been taking him to dialysis where he grew a tighter bond with his father-in-law.
With the community center destroyed, Brown said his family believes it’s all in God’s hands.
"I've talked to an ATF agent today about what else is going on and we don't know," Brown said. "We don't know the future, but as far as right now we're just going to continue. We're going to continue on and just try to do whatever we think God wants us to."
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.